Vietnam strengthens Galil ACE with domestic ammunition

With its stable flight path and extremely high accuracy, Vietnam has trusted the domestically produced 7.62 ammunition for the Galil ACE gun.

According to public information, Vietnam has now mastered the technology to manufacture the new generation Galil ACE infantry gun designed by Israel. This can be considered good news for the Vietnamese defense industry, because not only does Vietnam produce guns, but it has also successfully produced ammunition for the Galil ACE.

In terms of ammunition size, Galil ACE uses all common rifle ammunition sizes: 5.56, .308 and 7.62×39. The Galil ACE version fires 7.62mm bullets using AK-47 magazines and is mainly for export. The sniper version uses 308 bullets.

In addition, Galil ACE also has versions with different barrel lengths from compact, short-barreled carbine to long-barreled sniper.

Galil ACE Vietnam Gun.

In addition to producing conventional bullets, Factory Z113 under the General Department of Defense Industry also produces 7.62mm armor-piercing bullets. The bullets can be used for many types of guns currently in service.

The bullet is designed to penetrate 12mm thick CT3 steel at a distance of 100m and penetrate level 3 armor according to US NIJ101.04 standard.

To ensure the ability to penetrate steel, the authors have studied to increase the critical speed of the bullet and the hardness of the steel core. Through theoretical and experimental research, the authors have chosen the average designed bullet velocity at the position 25mm from the gun muzzle to be from 840 to 890m/s.

To ensure the hardness of the steel core, based on the materials used to produce K56 piercing bullets, the authors chose Y12A steel grade as the piercing core. The steel has a hardness of 64-66 HRC after quenching, and a hardness of 62-64 HRC after tempering at temperatures from 150 to 1600C.

The technology for manufacturing 7.62mm steel core bullets is the technology that the factory has applied to the production of regular 7.62mm bullets.

The steel core manufacturing process alone applies shaping technology, which is a cutting and hardening method for the steel core using salt furnace quenching and oil tempering technology.

The actual velocity of the bullet reaches 870.7 to 872.4 m/s; the ability to penetrate 16mm thick uniform CT3 steel placed perpendicular to the barrel axis at a distance of 100m is 100%; penetrating level 3 armor according to US standards is 100%.

The gunpowder pressure is the same as that of regular bullets, so it increases the durability of the gun. On the other hand, the bullet can still use the propellant used for regular bullets, so there is no need to produce new propellant.

The test firing results showed that the steel penetration ability met and exceeded the design parameters. Specifically, with CT3 steel targets with thicknesses of 14, 16 and 18mm when using PKMS gun at a distance of 100m, the penetration rate of 14 and 16mm thick steel plates reached 100%; the penetration rate of 18mm thick steel plates reached 80%.

Armor penetration test shot with level 3 armor at a distance of 15m also gave a penetration rate of 100%... The research project was awarded the second prize of Creative Youth in the Army.

According to Baodatviet